Blog

June 30, 2015

Recently released by MJMJ, a reliable standby and remarkably consistent player of the tape scene, HAXXXORS’ Brain Water brings is a refreshing spat of intricate, improvised techno. Reportedly the result of an austere setup involving two Nintendo DS and a mixer, the tape both transcends exhausted...

June 30, 2015

When not recording with Cleared (with Steven Hess) and the moniker COIN, an alias under which he previously recorded for Opal Tapes, Michael Vallera remains quite active solo, with a few recent standouts that include a murky, guitar-laced track titled “USA Self” for the 2015 edition...

June 29, 2015

Thanks to his production work, Andrew Nerviano’s debut as Plebeian arrives with a fair bit of context in tow; Nerviano, at the very least, handled most aspects of production on the final release from Daniel Creahan’s — aka Mind Dynamics — label Prison Art, and as TMT points...

June 27, 2015

#1 – 6.21.2015 – RVNG Intl. announced a set of six dates to be played in the US and CA by Robert A.A. Lowe and Ariel Kalma, whose We Know Each Other Somehow double-LP seems to have never left my turntable since it came out. Check the dates over at RVNG’s site and revisit our recent...

June 26, 2015

German experimental recorder Philipp Bückle usually appears under the name Teamforest and may be most recognizable to Decoder readers thanks to his collaboration as Beth Kleist, with fellow German auteur Nils Quak. Since this April though, he’s been releasing installments in a new triptych and...

June 25, 2015

Last week, New York producer Tallesen (aka Cayman Johnson) teased his upcoming Inca cassette for Bootleg Tapes in a mix for New Hive, with artwork from Jónó Mí Ló, as part of the summer launch for a new collaborative mix series from DJs and artists, Xenomorph, based on the site. The imagery and...

June 25, 2015

Although the horrors of radioactive testing and eventual pollution have certainly been explored throughout music before, the subject lends itself to an endless array of worthy and almost necessary takes. Jacob Kirkegaard‘s landmark Four Rooms album meditated on the aftermath of evacuated and forgotten...

June 25, 2015

It’s an exciting moment for us at Decoder when we get to premiere a record with genuine decoder-ring technology. This watershed day in our history is even more special because Taushiro consists of rough demos by electro-weirdness kabbalists German Army, a perennial favorite among the Decoder clan....

June 24, 2015

Decoder readers may recognize Seabat as the NY-based synth/soundtrack duo of John Also Bennett and composer Forest Christenson, thanks in part to his Goldtimers releases, including the diffuse and exotic recordings on Scattered Disc LP — originally released on tape and reissued on vinyl shortly...

June 23, 2015

Up to this point, Blondes has limited their blissful bouts of rhythmic nirvana to a mere handful of minutes per dose, reigning in the spiraling runs of mentally massaging dance music to more bite-size and easy-to-digest chunks. The approach always hit the mark, but the reasonable question of how the...

June 22, 2015

What do you think the apocalypse will sound like? Will it be a fireball, an inescapable roar that lasts an instant, or the slow, grinding rot of technology and decay withering humanity away? Well, apparently Greg Fox (Guardian Alien, Liturgy, Zs) and Kid Millions (Oneida, Man Forever) have some thoughts...

June 19, 2015

Perpetual melancholist John Daniel has been on the tip of the tongue of every follower of the Drone and Ambient game for a handful of years now, quietly issuing release after release of subtly whistful and supremely blissed-out sounds as Forest Management. As time goes on, though, the Cleveland-based...

June 18, 2015

It took me awhile to jump into the Royal Rumble that is the global podcast explosion. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until Decoder’s own David Perron started the FFFoxy Podcast back in 2012 (at which point we were both still writing for Foxy Digitalis) that I began to take notice of –...

June 16, 2015

As if in opposition to their name, Ontario trio FOAM‘s output consists of hard-edged, feedback-riddled garage punk that seems to last far beyond each track’s short lifespan, although that may just be the ringing in my ears. Their new tape, Charles, is due June 19th on Craft Singles via...

June 15, 2015

Based on the set-up, Purple Slime might be any album from bouncy Brattleboro vine-popper Grape Room, aka Peter Nichols of Spooky Town Tapes: “Made this album about Obsession and the color Purple and other types of Experience finding your Way in this world!” The “purple slime on my...

June 13, 2015

Congratulations to Juan Felipe Herrera on being named the US poet laureate, and congratulations to anyone who might be my or anybody else’s fellow American, we’ve got a pretty swanky poet laureate — who happens to have tremendous delivery. Here he is speaking at the Festival de Flor...

June 12, 2015

Like an LSD-inspired version of Rasputin, the Russian sorcerer known as Piper Spray emits jets of sonic wisdom all over the place. These sounds are just waiting to land inside the world’s ear holes, raining down on us humans like malformed Tetris pieces. It sounds crazy, but it’s pretty...

June 11, 2015

Depending on the album, song, setting, or project involved, Chuck Johnson‘s sound can be quite hard to pin down. Sure, the elements are all there (endearingly thoughtful, endlessly curious, endlessly relatable), but the Oakland resident’s style is always two steps ahead. Johnson, who has...